Printed weldable flexible polymer material for producing stretched structures such as false ceilings

ABSTRACT

Prefabricated bondable flexible polymer material in thin sheet, slab, or panel form for making tensioned structures such as false ceilings in particular, said mono- or multilayer material such as plasticized PVC, for example, carrying a direct ink jet or silkscreen print of at least one design of shapes and dimensions that are predetermined once the material is under tension; making a tensioned structure such as a tensioned false ceiling, in particular, from such a material, by means of a first step of selecting the type, dimensions, and dispositions of the mono- or polychromatic designs to be printed, said designs being digitized and recorded in a computer memory of a system for controlling a printing machine, printing optionally being performed on a plurality of bonded-together strips of material, and in particular over zones of edge-to-edge bonding between the strips, said printing taking place before or after bonding.

The invention relates to the technical field of prefabricated flexiblepolymer materials for building and/or decoration, such materials beingin sheet, slab, or panel form and of relatively small thickness, andthey can be used in particular for making false ceilings or false walls,and more generally wall or ceiling coverings.

The invention also relates to a method of making such a material and tocoverings obtained by tensioning such a material.

Numerous embodiments of such materials are known in the prior art, asare their use in making tensioned false ceilings.

By way of example, reference can be made to the French patentapplications published under the following numbers: 2 767 851, 2 751682, 2 734 296, 2 699 209, 2 695 670, 2 685 036, 2 627 207, 2 623 540, 2619 531, 2 592 416, 2 552 473, and 2 524 922.

Reference can also be made to the following French patent applicationsin the name of the Applicant: 2 736 615, 2 756 600, 2 727 711, 2 712325, 2 699 613, and 2 658 849.

Flexible polymer materials for making tensioned false ceilings and falsewalls and known in the prior art are provided with numerous qualitiessuch as, in particular: fire resistance, proofing against air as well asdust or moisture; ease of cleaning.

The resulting false ceilings can incorporate sound or heat insulation,spotlamps or various kinds of lighting, and also openings forventilation or airing, sprinklers.

Since they can be dismantled, they make it possible, where necessary, toperform work inside the plenum.

Such polymer materials, which can be translucent or opaque, beingoptionally bulk dyed, mat, gloss, marbled, with a suede or a glazedfinish, can thus be used in industrial or hospital settings, incanteens, laboratories, or dwellings.

A gloss finish can provide a mirror effect which is often used incommercial centers, whereas a mat finish rather close to plaster inappearance is more usual in traditional decoration.

Tensioned false ceilings or tensioned false walls are installed on amade-to-measure basis, which requires polymer sheet material to be cutand assembled.

In spite of their numerous advantages that have led to them being usedincreasingly in a wide variety of premises, tensioned polymer sheetfalse ceilings and false walls as known in the prior art suffer from twodrawbacks:

-   -   when they are of large size, their uniform and regular        appearance can appear too artificial or monotonous and this can        make them unsuitable for use in certain conventional or        historical architectural settings; and    -   when implemented in conventional manner in the form of a series        of strips, in spite of a degree of variety in finishes and bulk        dying, they do not always make it possible to achieve        personalization that matches the taste of a purchaser or the        style of premises in which they are to be installed.

To mitigate those drawbacks, it might be thought that the sheets ofmaterials used for making tensioned false ceilings or false walls couldbe printed.

Document FR-A-2 738 847 describes a fabric for false ceilings which isdescribed on page 2, lines 30–31 as being “easily printed (silkscreenprinting) or painted”. The fabric in question comprises a polyestercloth substrate, in particular a jacquard knit with a herringbone weave,coated in a plastisol on at least one face. That fabric is put intoplace at ambient temperature, so that mechanical characteristics, and inparticular elongation in the warp and the weft directions, remainsubstantially identical, thereby avoiding any defective appearance aftercooling (page 1, line 10–page 2, line 15 of document FR-A-2 738 847).

However, false ceilings are rarely put into place at ambient temperaturesince that requires the operator to exert a large amount of physicalforce, particularly when ceilings are of large area.

The conventional hot technique of installing tensioned ceilings givesrise, a priori, to severe difficulties if the ceilings are printed.These difficulties are mentioned in document WO-A-99/43907 (page 1,lines 25–30): tensioning such sheets after they have been printed canlead to images becoming distorted.

As a result, known printed false ceilings are in the form of suspendedslabs of small area (typically 1 square meter (m²) with the printing ofsmall areas presenting no technical problem.

The invention seeks to provide a material and a method for makingprinted tensioned false ceilings and false walls of large area, andsuitable for enabling said false ceilings or false walls to be put intoplace while hot.

To this end, in a first aspect, the invention provides a bondableflexible polymer material in the form of thin sheets, slabs, or panels,that are prefabricated for making tensioned structures such as falseceilings, in particular, said material carrying direct printing of atleast one design of shapes and dimensions that are predetermined afterthe material has been put under tension.

In a second aspect, the invention provides a method of making atensioned structure such as a tensioned false ceiling, in particular,using a material as defined above, the method comprising a first step ofselecting designs to be printed on the material, said designs beingmono- or polychromatic and being capable of being modified in shape,color, proportions, and dispositions, said designs being digitized andrecorded in a computer memory of a system for controlling a printingmachine.

In a third aspect, the invention provides tensioned structures includingsuch printed flexible materials.

Other objects and advantages of the invention appear from the followingdescription of embodiments, which description is given with reference tothe accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a plan view of a false ceiling comprising four printed stripsin one embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 2 is a diagrammatic cross-section on plane II—II of FIG. 1; and

FIGS. 3A and 3B are two diagrammatic cross-section views through thestrips, showing two implementations of the method of the invention.

In the text below, mention is made only of an application to tensionedfalse ceilings.

Nevertheless, it should be understood that the description can betransposed by a person skilled in the art to tensioned false walls, andmore generally, to any wall covering using a flexible polymer materialin the tensioned sheet form.

The false ceiling 1 shown in FIG. 1 is rectangular in outline, beingmade up of an assembly of four strips 2 a, 2 b, 2 c, and 2 d ofsubstantially identical width l.

Nevertheless, it should be understood that the false ceiling could be ofsome other outline, depending on requirements, and could be made up byassembling together some larger or smaller number of strips, which neednot necessarily be identical in width.

Where appropriate, the false ceiling could comprise a single strip only,e.g. when used in a relatively narrow space such as a corridor.

The false ceiling 1 comprises a frame 3 made using rails, with the freeedges of the assembled-together strips having margin members 4 or hooksco-operating with catch members 5 on the frame 3 by simple engagement orby positive hooking.

The margin members 4 can be secured by bonding 6 close to the edges 7,said bonding being masked from sight, e.g. by a portion 8 of the rails.

Various other ways of securing the strips to the rails and various knownforms of rail can be implemented when the strips are made of a flexiblepolymer material of the invention.

Consequently, the ways in which the strips are mounted on the frame arenot described in greater detail herein.

In certain embodiments of the invention, the polymer material isselected from: thermoplastic polymers such as plasticized polyvinylchloride (PVC) and polymers derived therefrom such as superchlorinatedvinyl chloride, polyvinylidene chloride, and copolymers of vinylchloride and of polyvinylidene chloride.

In certain particular embodiments, the material is a multilayermaterial, e.g. made by co-extrusion.

Where appropriate, the material can be mono- or bi-oriented.

The thickness e of the material lies in the range a few tenths of amillimeter to a few millimeters.

The material can be translucent or dyed in its bulk, so as to beingcapable of presenting a wide variety of colors; it can have finishesthat are gloss, marbled, mat, suede, or glazed as selected by the user.

In an embodiment, the material is provided with flocking so as to giveit a velvet or fabric appearance. By way of example, the surface of thematerial is coated in an adhesive suitable for finely-cut textilefibers, the fibers of the flocking being applied by screening andbeating or by being blown under pressure, or indeed electrostaticallywhen a high density of fibers is desired.

In order to enable the false ceilings to be adapted to the style desiredfor the premises in which it is to be mounted, or in order to enable thefalse ceiling to be personalized, it can carry a design D printeddirectly thereon.

The printing can be silkscreen printing or digital printing using an inkjet.

In a particular embodiment, the printing is performed in a single stagein order to produce a design of large dimensions, e.g. inscribed in acircular envelope having a diameter of the order of two to three meters.

There follows a description of various implementations of a method ofmaking such printed tensioned ceilings.

In a first step, a design is selected, e.g. from a paper or digitalcatalog.

With a digital catalog, the printing machine can be controlled directlyor indirectly by the computer system in which the selected design isstored.

By way of example, the catalog can comprise reproductions of classicalworks such as famous painted ceilings, and also reproductions of modernworks, color photographs, or cartoon characters.

The catalog can have several color schemes for the same design, with itbeing possible, where appropriate, for the user to request amodification to the design or the color scheme given in an example inthe catalog.

Several catalog designs can be selected for printing simultaneously.

In a variant implementation, the user can select a pattern that is notincluded in the catalog, for example, a personal photograph, or the logoof a business or some other body.

The designs that are selected can optionally be line drawings, and theycan be monochrome or polychrome.

Where appropriate, the color and the finish of the printed material arematched to the colors of the selected design and/or to the colors of thepremises in which the false ceiling is to be installed, or indeed to thedesired style.

In an implementation of the method, the selected design is repeated soas to form an optionally regular pattern, with the individual designsbeing spaced uniformly or otherwise.

In a variant, at least two designs differing in shape and/or size and/orcolor can be repeated so as to form an optionally regular alternation.

The size of any selected design can be matched to the dimensions of thefinal false ceiling.

The position of any selected design can likewise be adapted to anylooked-for effect.

Thus, for example:

-   -   a drawing reproducing artificial old-fashioned ceiling moldings        can be placed centrally on the false ceiling around a chandelier        or other lighting system placed in the center of the ceiling;        and    -   a design reproducing wallpaper patterns can be placed at the        margins of the false ceiling so as to extend those patterns, so        to speak.

The selected design can thus be placed in the center or at the peripheryof the false ceiling, covering substantially its entire surface area oronly a portion thereof.

Where appropriate, only a portion of a catalog design need be selectedfor printing purposes.

Once this first step of selecting the shapes, locations, and colors ofthe design(s) has been performed, an optional second step of printing onpaper or some other low-cost medium can be carried out in order toenable the user to view, at little cost, the final effect that will beobtained after the false ceiling has been put into place.

Such printing on paper can be performed on a medium of large size, e.g.having a width in excess of two meters, using the same machine as isused for printing the sheets of flexible polymer material.

Once the user has confirmed the selected design, a third step ofprinting proper on the sheet of flexible polymer material can beperformed in the factory, away from the site where the tensioned falseceiling is to be installed.

In one implementation of this third step, printing is performed strip bystrip, as represented diagrammatically in FIG. 3A.

A single design can optionally extend over a plurality of printed stripsprior to assembly.

When the strips are assembled together by bonding, a protective flap 10can be put into place in the vicinity of each side edge 11 of the stripsso as to enable bonding to be taken up after printing has beenperformed.

Bonding can be performed using ultrasound, high frequency, heat-sealing,etc. as a function specifically of the chemical nature of the flexiblepolymer material used.

When the nature of the inks used for printing is incompatible with themethods used for bonding, a mask or some other means suitable forprotecting the side edges 11 of the strips should be put into place inthe printing machine.

In another implementation of the third step of printing the strips (FIG.3B), the printing is performed after the strips have been bondedtogether.

In this implementation, printing is performed on a plurality ofbonded-together strips of material, and in particular it is performedover the edge-to-edge bonding zones between the strips.

This second implementation can correspond both to a design D thatextends over a single strip, and to a design that extends over aplurality of strips, as shown diagrammatically in FIG. 3B.

The inks and varnishes used during the printing third step are treated,in one implementation, so as to be protected against ultravioletradiation.

The same may also apply to the flexible polymer material carrying theprinting, so as to prevent it aging by photo-oxidation, particularlywhen PVC is used.

As is known to the person skilled in the art, the inks and varnishesshould be selected in such a manner as to be capable of deforming whilethe false ceiling is being put into place.

Were appropriate, when the bonding between the strips can give rise tounbalanced lengthening of the strips during installation of the falseceiling, the design can be corrected locally in such a manner as toobtain a design having the correct proportions after installation.

For printing the strips, a reference point can be taken that is remotefrom the edges of each strip, being substantially in the geometricalcenter of the sheet, so as to take account of strip lengthening duringtensioning.

In order to limit image distortion during tensioning of the strips, thepolymer material can be mono- or bi-oriented.

The strip(s) of printed flexible polymer material can be assembled toconventional non-printed flaps of material so as to form a tensionedsheet for a false ceiling or a false wall.

By an appropriate selection of printed patterns, the resulting falseceilings can easily be adapted to a very wide variety of surroundings,in particular for internal decoration of historic homes, or premises forspecial occasions.

By printing a design that is predeformed, it is possible to put a falseceiling or a false wall into place while hot, the design returning toits desired outlines and proportions when the sheet material cools.

As is known, per se, hot installation makes it easier to put the falseceiling or false wall into place because the sheet material used expandsthermally.

In another implementation, printing is performed on the sheet materialfor the false ceiling or false wall while it is in the tensioned state,with its tension then being substantially identical to the tension thatwill subsist after the false ceiling or false wall has been put intoplace.

1. A prefabricated material for making hot-tensioned structures to forma false ceiling or a false wall, the material comprising: one or morethin flexible sheets; each sheet being sized and configured to beretained in a respective frame in a tensioned state at an ambienttemperature; each sheet including direct printing of predeformed designsof shapes and dimensions, the predeformed designs taking account ofdifferential lengthening of the printed material during hot-tensioning,said predeformed designs substantially compensating for distortion inthe design caused by the being hot-tensioned, and thus ensuring that aproperly proportioned design is obtained on the tensioned printedmaterial.
 2. The material according to claim 1, wherein multiple sheetshaving said predeformed designs printed thereon are assembled togetherby bonding.
 3. The material according to claim 1, wherein the materialis selected from the group comprising thermoplastic polymers includingplasticized polyvinyl chloride and polymers derived therefrom assuperchlorinated vinyl chloride, polyvinylidene chloride, and copolymersof vinyl chloride and polyvinylidene chloride.
 4. The material accordingto claim 1, wherein the material is a multilayer material.
 5. Thematerial according to claim 1, wherein the material is mono- orbi-oriented.